Legislative Update

Friends and Neighbors,

After multiple hours of debate on the Housing Provider/Tenant Omnibus and Housing Omnibus bills the House DFL passed both HF 917 and HF 2335 along partisan lines Cost increases and a shortage of housing have been major problems we have tried to address in the Housing Committee on which I?m the GOP lead and yet these bills do little to address the underlying problems that have put our state in this situation.

This plan is heavily weighted toward metro area funding as well as rental subsidies and the lack of workforce housing is especially disappointing. The Housing bill includes a 0.25% increase in retail sales tax for the seven-county metro that will go towards the rental assistance program. When our state has a record 17.5 billion dollar surplus it is unthinkable that we would implement this regressive tax that will hurt most the people this program is supposed to help.

Wednesday evening was the State of the State address where Governor Walz laid out his goals for our state. Notably absent from his speech was his usual mantra of ?One Minnesota?. I find it disappointing that he decided to take what is usually an opportunity for bipartisanship and use it for such a divisive speech. You can listen to the speech in it?s entirety here.

This Saturday is national drug takeback day. This is an opportunity to turn in expired and unwanted medications so that they can be disposed of properly. Medications that are just thrown out can end up in the wrong hands or can be damaging to the environment in a landfill. Find your nearest drop-off location here and clean up your medicine cabinet.

Legislative Update

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